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RICHMOND, VA – Newly released figures from Virginia Health Information (VHI), the agency that gathers and reports health care data in the Commonwealth, yet again confirm the fact that many local hospitals across the state continue to struggle financially.

The numbers show that 27 percent of Virginia’s acute care, critical access, and children’s hospitals, and more than 43 percent of rural hospitals, operated in the red during 2015.

Those figures indicate a slight increase from 2014 data showing roughly 25 percent of overall hospitals, and 42 percent of rural hospitals, with negative operating margins. Data from the past two years reflect the continuation of a pattern consistently evid

July 30 – The Energy and Commerce Committee slogged through amendments to the public health care bill where the Democrats hold a majority.

Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess introduced an amendment to eliminate the “government controlled public option” from the health care bill.

After much rhetoric the voting began and as might be expected the vote fell mostly along party lines. That is except for Democrat “Rick” Boucher of Virginia’s 9th District. Boucher was never in his seat for the entire committee proceedings. He only poked his head in the room to vote. This time he stood by the doorway raising his hand gesturing with two fingers voting with an unexpected resounding “yes” to removing the public option from the health care bill. The government public option is the “guts” of the bill. I had to watch the replay of Boucher’s vote to believe it.

Boucher’s vote is puzzling in light of the Remote Area Medical (RAM) that provides free health care services for the uninsured in Boucher’s region. There was record attendance by those whose only source of health care is this once a year outreach. It was held at the Wise County Fair Grounds in Wise, VA on July 24, 25, and 26.

Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas spoke up that he along with Boucher was formulating a plan that included “pooling.” Whether it is a public pool and how many can swim in it – it is hard to say. There is a mutation of pooling possibilities. Small businesses could pool together for negotiating leverage. With pools people could leak out like a sieve.

What is Boucher up to? Why did he vote “yes” to remove the public option? Perhaps its payback for being shuffled out of the chairmanship of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee by Congressman Henry Waxman of California. Waxman is now chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee that convened last night.

Waxman is a shrewd politician. As he realized the votes were not there to defeat the amendment to remove abortion from the health care bill he changed his “no” vote to “yes.” The amendment passed with Waxman’s last second change of vote.

Later Waxman’s reason for his flip-flop became clear. He brought the amendment back with “a motion to reconsider.” This parliamentary trick can only be used by a legislator when their vote is in the prevailing side.

In the interim Congressman Bart Gordon of Tennessee had a change of heart. His “yes” vote flipped to a “no.” Congressman Zack Space of Ohio who did not vote the first time came in to add his “no” vote. The amendment was narrowly defeated 30-29. With this round Waxman kept his “no” vote and abortion procedures were retained in the health care bill.

What a reality show it was on C-SPAN. It only got better from there.

Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York with his Brooklyn tough-guy demeanor “double-dog-dared” the Republicans to vote for his amendment to dismantle Medicare. Weiner only offered the amendment to make the point that Republicans were being hypocritical in their rhetoric about a “government sponsored public health care option” saying “if you don’t like this public option then you don’t want Medicare.” He demanded a roll-call vote and after some wild banter back and forth the amendment failed unanimously. Weiner voting against his own amendment.

Congressman Barton of Texas called for a “point of order” saying “don’t you have to vote for your own amendment?”

You can’t make this stuff up! It starts again at 10:00 am Friday and “will go as long as it takes,” said Chairman Waxman.

Comments (3)

KAY

July 31st, 2009 at 11:18 PM

Finally Boucher does something right!

VOTE NO ON OBAMA CARE!!LET YOUR CONGRESSMAN KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!THIS IS TOO IMPORTANT TO OUR KIDS, GRAND KIDS AND US, TO LET THE GOVERNMENT RUN OUR PERSONAL HEALTH CARE CHOICES…MY GOSH, THEY ( OUR GOVERNMENT), RAN OUT OF MONEY IN JUST 4 DAYS ON THE “TRADE A GAS GUZZLER IN PROGRAM”, AND WE WE THINK WE WANT THESE PEOPLE, MAKING OUR LIFE AND DEATH CHOICES…HECK NO!

Chris

August 4th, 2009 at 10:39 AM

First of all, Congress is who created the bill. It wasn’t created by Obama. Offering more affordable health care and limiting the power of the insurance companies is not the end of the world. 47 million of us are uninsured, of that 47 million–85% are in working families. Approx 46% of all personal bankruptcies are attributed to high medical bills. Taxpayers are stuck with paying for a poor healthcare system and the repercussions of it now, so why not pay for it a different way that benfits society? Our healthcare is already being rationed—it’s done by corportations with much to gain by exercising their lack of acceptance of preexisting conditions and disregard for individual consideration. The gov’t has not proposed to make it their policy to ration healthcare, just streamline it and make it better with cost-saving evidence-based technology and methods. The proposed health care reform would include having coordinated care, preventive care, a revolutionized system that would decrease room for errors and duplications of procedures, would allow medical providers to access a patient’s medical records and track progress or problems and provide incentives for medical providers whose care produces better health. Many other countries already have systems similar to the one proposed by CONGRESS, they run more efficiently than ours, MUCH more affordable than ours and have them sitting at the top of the best rated healthcare systems in the world. Perhaps you are ok having the 37th, 38th healthcare in the world but most are not. Insurance companies have gotten away with too much for too long, and how you can trust them to change on their own is beyond me. Perhaps if you read the proposal, you won’t sound so uneducated and you won’t be so upset that your anger forces you to type in all caps.